As anyone who has spent any amount of time with an infant knows, motion is a universal soother of a fussy or tired baby. A new parent instinctively sways side to side to calm his baby, and even the crankiest of little ones has been known to drift off into blissful (and alas, quiet) slumber when snuggled into a car seat and driven around the block. For the less vehicularly inclined parent, the current marketplace offers numerous baby swings, bouncers, vibrational devices and strollers, all of which depend on motion to soothe an infant.
With so many different motion devices available for soothing an infant, an infant's caregiver may have, in addition to an infant carrier for use in a car, a baby swing, a bouncer, a stroller, or any combination of such devices for use around the home. Universal strollers that accept a standard infant car seat, which allows a caregiver to move a sleeping baby from a car to a stroller without removing the baby from the car seat, are known (e.g., see U.S. Pat. No. 6,209,892, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein). However, if the caregiver simply wishes to move a calm or sleeping baby from the car to a baby swing or to a bouncer (or vice versa), the caregiver necessarily must jostle the baby, likely disrupting the baby's good mood or sleep. For example, upon arriving home from an outing, a baby may be fast asleep in the car, but, as an experienced parent knows, the baby may awaken abruptly once the motion of the car has ceased. To allow the baby to continue his or her nap, the parent may wish to place the infant into the swing or bouncer, but the mere act of doing so may disturb and awaken the baby.
In another example, a parent may wish to soothe a baby prior to an outing, such as a car ride or a stroll around the park, but after soothing the baby in a swing or bouncer, the baby's good mood may be lost as the parent tries to remove the baby from the swing or bouncer. Accordingly, even with all of the motion soothing devices currently available, needs remain for improved methods and devices for soothing an infant without the unnecessary disruption inherent in transferring the infant from one soothing setting to another.